


Missing Ianto

by Rinkafic



Series: Magor 'verse [13]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:52:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What?  Did you think I was only doing one fandom in this 'verse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Ianto

“You cannot do this!” Owen grabbed Jack’s arm and tried to stop him from going into the library chamber.

Easily shaking the slighter man off, Jack turned to glare at him. “If I do not do this, he will die! I cannot live without him, Owen.”

Trying one last time, because he was sworn to protect the others of the Tadone, Owen moved to place himself in the doorway. He could smell the fire within the room; he could smell the death that was coming. “He’s gone, Jack. He’s been gone for a fortnight, but you have been too stubborn to admit it. You cannot bring him back; no spell can bring him back!”

“Listen to him, Jack, please, we need you. If you go down this path, you may fall to the dark; you might not be able to come back from it. Do not ask us to stand by as both you and Ianto leave us. He had no choice, you do,” Gwen crossed her arms and glared at him.

“Please Jack,” Tosh begged.

He looked at each of them in turn, his Tagone, his family, his strength. But his vows to the council meant nothing without Ianto at his side, without Ianto serving as his Gara, he could not carry on as a Nandeer, his life would mean nothing when Ianto passed forever into the world beyond. What matter if he put all into this, since he would not live long after failure?

“Give me the blade, Owen,” he said coldly, in a voice that warned against any further argument. With a last sigh of impatience, Owen slapped the sharp, narrow, ceremonial blade into his palm and stepped aside. “Stay out,” he growled.

But Gwen ignored the order of course; she only obeyed him when it suited her to do so. She took up a place beside the door, her sword drawn and held cradled in her arms. When she had first been sent to them, he had not thought she would be capable of the strength she had brought to the Tadone, but she had surprised them all. He trusted no one else to guard his back, that place belonged to Gwen, daughter of barrel makers.

Ianto was on the table in the workroom that had been his favorite place in the house. The ties and bindings that had held him still had been removed when his body had gone cold, no longer necessary. He approached his Gara slowly, his eyes focused on the face he loved. He missed Ianto so much that it pained him; it sapped his strength and his will to live. Their lives were truly intertwined. If he did not do this, he knew that he would pine away and follow Ianto into the darkness.

“If you’re wrong, Jack? If it isn’t still there inside him? What will happen then? Wait for the hedge magor to answer the call. Wait for one of the real healers.”

“I heard that!” Owen shouted from outside the door.

“Finish your studies and your last test at the Council and I’ll count you a real healer and not just a minstrel’s boy,” Gwen spat back.

“Some respect for the dead, friends, please,” Tosh said quietly, grasping Owen’s sleeve and drawing him back from the door.

Jack’s glare was like ice. “He is not dead. He will not die if I have a say in the matter.” He unbuttoned Ianto’s shirt, folding the edges back to reveal the pale chest. The skin was cool to his touch; the fever had burned out days before. The Nandeer did not believe as the others did, he knew… he sensed that the creature that had infected his lover was still present. He brushed a hand over the chilled skin of Ianto’s abdomen.

“Here. It is here,” he said more to himself than the others. He raised the blade. If he did this, if he drew blood from his Gara, he would be skirting the edge of the law. Only a healer was permitted to break the skin of another when the purpose was not a marking. Jack did not mean to make any marks here today. He meant to open Ianto’s body and take the tiny monster out. He believed with all his heart that then Owen would be able to bring Ianto back through the dark to them once the monster was no longer working at cross purposes to him. Jack needed to believe that.

“Jack,” Gwen begged. “Not the blood path, please.”

He shook his head ad avoided her gaze, she alone might sway him, and he could not turn from this path. He felt with his fingers until he found the edge of the bump. A whispered spell heated the blade, burned away impurities. Another cooled the edge once more. He cut swiftly, a straight line beside the lump. Then he sliced across his own palm, intending to mix his blood with Ianto’s to strengthen the casting. As he set the knife aside and stuck his hand into the opening he had made in his lover’s body, he saw the lump move.

“Gwen, to me!”

Her sword clattered to the floor and she was beside him in an instant, picking up the blade he had set down. She might not agree with his choice, but she would stand beside him. His fingers brushed warm flesh that moved away. Jack grimaced and forced his hand further in, his questing fingers found purchase on the slippery flesh and he yanked at it, drawing it out through the hole. It screamed in a high pitched whine that cut through their ears and kicked and thrashed its tiny limbs as Jack held it around the throat.

“You took mine from me. You were given the chance to depart. Your trespass cost you your life.” Jack put the demon-kin on the table and Gwen stabbed it with the knife. It screamed again and began to bleed black. Gwen hurled it, knife and all, into the fireplace. It crackled and twisted and burned quickly. The knife clattered to the stone in a pile of ash.

Owen had come into the workroom at Jack’s earlier shout for Gwen and he was now muttering under his breath as he worked to undo the damage Jack had done to Ianto’s body. He was casting and sewing at the same time. Taking Jack’s arm, Gwen drew him away, towards a chair near the fire. “Your part in this is done Jack, let Owen do his,” she soothed as he sat.

Moving to stand near his feet, Tosh said, “We were wrong, it was demon-kin plaguing Ianto. My heartfelt apologies Jack, I should have had faith.” The priestess of Hart bowed her head in shame.

“We all should have had faith,” Gwen agreed.

“I couldn’t live without him,” Jack whispered brokenly. “I’m so cold.”

As Tosh wrapped a blanket around Jack’s shoulders, Gwen looked suspicious at the admission and demanded, “What did you do, Nandeer? What did you put into this?”

“He put a hell of lot of himself into it, is what he did!” Owen called. “Damnable blood casting, he’s linked his life force to the Gara. When did you learn to cast healing, Nandeer?”

They were all looking at him. He tugged the edges of the blanket closed, stared at the flames and replied wearily, “Along the path of a long life, I picked things up. Did I put enough light; will he come back from the darkness?”

“Time will tell. Gwen, come and help me lift him so that I can bandage this mess.”

 

For two days, Jack sat in the chair by the fire and shivered as Ianto slept upon the pallet near his feet. Shortly after dawn on the third day, Jack heard a noise. He looked down to see that Ianto’s eyes were open and watching him.

“I had a dream.”

“Did you?”

“I dreamed I went on a journey. I did not want to leave. You called me back and I came because I did not want to go one without you beside me.”

“I felt the same way. I missed you, Ianto.” Jack knelt beside the pallet and took Ianto’s hand, squeezing it between both of his.

“You are cold, lie down beside me, share the blankets,” Ianto told him, as always looking to Jack’s well being before his own. Spreading the blanket from his shoulders over Ianto, he lay beside him and clutched his lover’s hand. He was so weary. He had not slept as he watched over Ianto. He had not slept for many, many nights.

“Sleep Jack. I will be here when you wake,” Ianto whispered as he kissed Jack’s temple gently.

And he was.

 

The End


End file.
